What sort of “moral connotations” are you referring to? The term “hate crime” is pretty clear cut in Canadian law, defined in sections 318 and 319 of the Criminal Code.
This is fair, if it’s a legal term then use it. But the vocabulary slants the way we think about it. Saying “this person did XYZ because they are hateful” rhetorically suggests that they are just an evil person. If instead we said “this person did XYZ because they were radicalized” suggests that this was a process that was potentially predictable
What sort of “moral connotations” are you referring to? The term “hate crime” is pretty clear cut in Canadian law, defined in sections 318 and 319 of the Criminal Code.
This is fair, if it’s a legal term then use it. But the vocabulary slants the way we think about it. Saying “this person did XYZ because they are hateful” rhetorically suggests that they are just an evil person. If instead we said “this person did XYZ because they were radicalized” suggests that this was a process that was potentially predictable
Unfortunately, we all have the capacity for hate within us. I think you are reading something in that is not there.